1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera equipped with a built-in flash light emitting device (or "strobe"), and more particularly, to a camera equipped with plural distinct, individual flash light emitting units.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional cameras, a single flash light emitting unit is built-in to the front face of the camera body to provide sufficient light for exposing photographic film. The single flash light emitting unit has to be miniature in order to make the camera small, yet capable of emitting a powerful amount of light, so as to perform flash photography having a sufficient amount of light to illuminate a subject to be photographed. These conventional cameras, with a single flash emitting unit, cause few problems during normal photography (when the subject is further than a first prescribed distance and closer than a second prescribed distance), but cause significant problems during close-up photography (when the subject is quite close to the camera) and far-distance photography (when the subject is further than the second prescribed distance).
In the case of performing close-up photography (near distance photography), because direct powerful light illuminates the photographic subject, strong shadows border the photographic subject and show up strongly in the photograph, decreasing the quality of the photograph and causing it to look very unnatural.
Further, in the conventional cameras, a margin is not provided in the luminous intensity distribution characteristic relative to the field angle of the lens. The reason for this is to avoid the situation that, when the angle of luminous intensity is widened, a decrease in the amount of light results, so that a large capacitor becomes necessary, increasing the cost and resulting in a larger camera size.
To compensate for the distance apart of the lens of the above-mentioned camera and the single flash light emitting unit, the flash light emitting unit is located with an inclination slightly forward and downward, but when the photographic subject is closer than a particular distance at which the lens field angle and the strobe angle of luminous intensity intersect, it is not covered at the lower boundary by the light of the flash light emitting unit. Furthermore, when the flash light emitting unit is inclined even more forward and downward than above-mentioned, the upward-directed portion intersects the luminous intensity angle of the flash light emitting unit, and when the photographic subject is further than the intersection distance, the subject is not covered at the upper boundary by the light of the flash light emitting unit.
In order to prevent strong shadows, the photographic lens and the flash light emitting unit may be brought as close together as possible, but in the case that a human figure is to be photographed from further than a given distance, the "red eye" phenomenon is unavoidable. Therefore, conventional cameras with single flash light emitting units either generate strong shadows during close-up photography or a "red eye" effect during far away photography of human figures.